| English
Creek, California |
Don
Bertolette |
| Saturday,
March 16, 2002 12:43 PM |
Kevin-
While I know them as relicts, as a west coast participater and
one of
the charter members of a sister (brother/whatever) organization
WNTS, I
have long been fascinated by 'anachronistic plants' or remnants
from
earlier times. My first exposure to them was checking the
account of
this gentleman name of Sudworth who traipsed from Baja
California to
British Columbia recording species composition and range,
botanical
descriptions, drawings, etc. during the first decade of the last
century. His accounts indicated that there was a relict stand of
Picea
breweriana (Brewer's spruce) in hanging glacial valleys above
English
Creek, in the Trinity Alps of Northern California.
As a
Humboldt State
forestry student who spent more time in the forest than in the
classes,
I was perfectly poised to follow up...I did hike cross-country up
into
those hanging glacial valleys, the Brewer's spruces were still
there,
the osprey circled and dove into tarns that filled in glacial
cirques at
the heads of these hanging glacial valleys. It was spring, and
abundant
rock gardens on the southern exposures were rife with life,
perhaps also
populated with relict species...
-Don B
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